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No matter how I turn it, this blog is clearly doomed to fail, at least if we would use the number of readers as a bias, and I will personally keep it that way. Why?
Easy:
the lack of consistency.
It is impossible for me to keep focused on merely one subject during an extended period of time (*). In the same week, I will jump from ranting about our current political situation, over the new Linux distro that I am currently using and guitar practice, to a Japanese proverb that happens to inspire me. How can I expect anybody to follow this blog when it remains so irregular?
As long as there is no consistency in content, there will also be no consistency in the readers, simply because I can't expect people to share the exact mix of all these different interests. To be a successful blog (in terms of 'having many readers'), the basics are to focus on one particular subject and deepen that one out (with maybe the occasional 'slip'). It may then not reflect the versatility of your personality, but readers can subscribe to it and they will know what to expect.
Well, I never know what to expect of my own blog entries, so how can the readers? There are plainly too many things that interest me. I am interested in academics (be it science or social), art, business and cheap entertainment. I can't even sum it up more incomplete than that.
The people that probably regret this chaotic (indecisive?) character of mine the most, are my parents. The lovely creatures have always paid for my full education and I have kept that very broad: from classic languages to economics and later on science. Reaching adulthood, I plunged into computer science, but instead of diving deeper, I made sure that I covered the whole surface. I got the precious "degree in nerdness", only to leave it all to be a volunteer in social work and a few years later I put almost all my assets in constructing a lodge in Ghana (which is doing pretty well, thank you).
I guess this desire of being an "all-rounder" started from a kind of 'hunger', maybe even a "fear", that I need to get as much out of life as possible, not to miss anything. But at the same time, it limits me, making me shallow and unable to contribute something interesting as I will stay on the surface instead of digging deeper in a niche.
From the start this simple blog has always been like a small mirror for my personal thoughts (be them serious, silly or only 'wondering'), or even to improve my own writing skills. Maybe that is the best description, I write to improve my own writing, regardless of the subject.
Still, I am a vain person and more ambitious than I dare to admit, so last week I added a widget that counts the number of users. Silly, because then of course I will check the statistics as well and having an average of 1 person online (mainly 'me') is what I should have known to expect :-)
It has put my two feet back on the ground though: as long as I don't do something 'outstanding', I will never get a massive following. So, dear reader, if you are out there, thank you for enduring my chaotic style of blogging.
More:
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(*) Or I should have to start several different blogs, to keep all the different subjects in line. This would completely follow my obsessive behaviour of putting everything in its own separate 'box', but I don't want to maintain dozens of blogs at the same time.
To keep a minimum of order, I already started two sideblogs: Books I Read, about with whom I left the books that I have been reading and Nederig Nederlands to support people that are learning Dutch.
Easy:
the lack of consistency.
It is impossible for me to keep focused on merely one subject during an extended period of time (*). In the same week, I will jump from ranting about our current political situation, over the new Linux distro that I am currently using and guitar practice, to a Japanese proverb that happens to inspire me. How can I expect anybody to follow this blog when it remains so irregular?
As long as there is no consistency in content, there will also be no consistency in the readers, simply because I can't expect people to share the exact mix of all these different interests. To be a successful blog (in terms of 'having many readers'), the basics are to focus on one particular subject and deepen that one out (with maybe the occasional 'slip'). It may then not reflect the versatility of your personality, but readers can subscribe to it and they will know what to expect.
Well, I never know what to expect of my own blog entries, so how can the readers? There are plainly too many things that interest me. I am interested in academics (be it science or social), art, business and cheap entertainment. I can't even sum it up more incomplete than that.
The people that probably regret this chaotic (indecisive?) character of mine the most, are my parents. The lovely creatures have always paid for my full education and I have kept that very broad: from classic languages to economics and later on science. Reaching adulthood, I plunged into computer science, but instead of diving deeper, I made sure that I covered the whole surface. I got the precious "degree in nerdness", only to leave it all to be a volunteer in social work and a few years later I put almost all my assets in constructing a lodge in Ghana (which is doing pretty well, thank you).
I guess this desire of being an "all-rounder" started from a kind of 'hunger', maybe even a "fear", that I need to get as much out of life as possible, not to miss anything. But at the same time, it limits me, making me shallow and unable to contribute something interesting as I will stay on the surface instead of digging deeper in a niche.
From the start this simple blog has always been like a small mirror for my personal thoughts (be them serious, silly or only 'wondering'), or even to improve my own writing skills. Maybe that is the best description, I write to improve my own writing, regardless of the subject.
Still, I am a vain person and more ambitious than I dare to admit, so last week I added a widget that counts the number of users. Silly, because then of course I will check the statistics as well and having an average of 1 person online (mainly 'me') is what I should have known to expect :-)
It has put my two feet back on the ground though: as long as I don't do something 'outstanding', I will never get a massive following. So, dear reader, if you are out there, thank you for enduring my chaotic style of blogging.
More:
- In praise of failure (Wired)
- Conversation Agency on consistency
- The Role of Consistency in Content Creation (Social Branding)
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(*) Or I should have to start several different blogs, to keep all the different subjects in line. This would completely follow my obsessive behaviour of putting everything in its own separate 'box', but I don't want to maintain dozens of blogs at the same time.
To keep a minimum of order, I already started two sideblogs: Books I Read, about with whom I left the books that I have been reading and Nederig Nederlands to support people that are learning Dutch.
Failing can only be measured by comparing results to targets. When I read your post, at one hand your target seems to be "expressing yourself", on the onder hand "attracting many readers" (how many will be satisfactory?). I think you are meeting the first one. To meet the second one (which should be specified -SMART :-)-), you should opt a marketing strategy. That can indeed be seperate blogs, but there are other options that can be considered. For example: every monday : ICT, every tuesday : politics, every wednesday, ... etc.
ReplyDeleteExactly, I needed this post to remind myself that the target of this blog is "expressing myself" rather than being popular :-)
ReplyDeleteStill, sometimes 'vanity' overcomes me and then I might peek at the number of readers, haha. I'm merely human.
Your remark is completely correct, thanks!
Today you had at least one visitor :-)
ReplyDeleteClassic by Dedoimedo on "How to increase your website traffic": Make hate, not love.
ReplyDelete